Sanju Samson lit up the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday night during the great century against Bangladesh. Since 2015, he had been knocking on the doors of international cricket; now, he had finally achieved his first T20I century and created a new record for himself as the Indian with the fastest century in T20Is. In fact, it was this one innings that propelled him to a match-winning 111 off just 47 deliveries, inclusive of 11 fours and eight sixes – six of them in one over-which powered India to a huge total of 297-the highest ever by any side in T20I cricket and the second-highest globally.
The knock from Sanju helped India reach a total of 297, now recorded as the second-highest score in T20I history. Speaking about his match, Samson said that he has learned how to handle pressure after a tricky phase in his career.
As a batsman, you have to keep being aggressive, keep looking at the scoring options, and the risk is high. And when the risk is high, definitely there are a lot of failures also. So with all the experience and with so many years of playing IPL and playing international cricket, I have somehow learned to cope with the pressure and the failures,” he said.
He thanked captain Suryakumar Yadav and coach Gautam Gambhir for believing in him at a time when two successive ducks over the Sri Lanka tour in July did not seem very flattering. The 29-year-old admitted that he was not sure if he would get another chance, but credits the team management for standing by him.
A lot of credit goes to the dressing room, the leadership group. I think the captain and the coach have been backing me like anything. I was a bit doubtful after a couple of ducks in Sri Lanka that I will be getting a chance in the next series. But they backed me and kept on saying that we will back you no matter what.
He ended by promising that the team would stick to playing aggressive cricket, saying: “I think we have committed as a batting group to go out and dominate every game we play in this format. So as a team, we are doing it and I am very grateful that I did something good for the team today.”
